The small electric fish that are key to Leonard Maler’s research are hiding at the bottoms of tanks scattered around his laboratory. It’s easy to miss them.

It’s impossible, though, to miss the sense of disbelief that hangs in the air as the neuroscientist — an internationally recognized leader in brain research — and his team absorb the news that, for the first time in 40 years, the lab has been turned down for funding by Canada’s biomedical research agency, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The funding decision is seen as a blow to support for basic science in Canada. One of the reviewers who turned down Maler’s funding application said simply that his brain research was “too basic.” His work focuses on studying small electric fish to better understand sensory systems, spatial learning and other brain functions.

Maler, whose research is widely respected, widely published and has attracted scientists from around the world to work with him, remains upbeat about the future. His lab will shrink, but it won’t shut down. He hopes to continue and expand some of his work in collaboration with a colleague at the University of Ottawa and will continue to mentor and teach at the school.

“I am not shutting up shop. I am changing focus.”

Still, his lab stands as a high-profile example of how changes to the way the CIHR assesses and awards funding are hurting fundamental scientific research, even as the Liberal government is vowing to support basic science.

There is already fallout from the funding decision. Maler will take part of his research to Germany, which, he says, “still supports basic research.” He is hoping to bring Canadian trainees there so that they can eventually bring his system back to Canada with them when “CIHR funding reviews go back to normal.” Meanwhile, some of the researchers who came to Ottawa to work with him will reluctantly leave the country and take their research with them.

Eric Harvey-Girard displays one of the electric fish from the Amazon whose brain is studied in the lab of Dr. Len Maler in Ottawa. Errol McGihon /
Postmedia

CIHR has been under fire for a series of reforms that have gutted the peer review system and resulted in some scientists across the country closing labs and looking outside Canada to continue their research. The funding agency’s new online-based peer review system has been the subject of widespread criticism and a near revolt by Canadian scientists. Basic researchers have been hit particularly hard.

David Park, director of the University of Ottawa’s Brain and Mind Research Institute, said Maler, “like many basic researchers, has been affected by the recent realignment of CIHR’s funding approach, which neglects fundamental studies. We believe it is important that all funding agencies recognize the nature of basic research as a critical foundation for effective clinical outcomes,” Park said.

“We strongly encourage CIHR and indeed all funding agencies to support basic discovery research to enable groundbreaking discoveries, such as Dr. Maler’s, to continue.”

Five people will lose their jobs in Maler’s lab. Some will take their work to other countries, including the U.S. and Germany, where they are being welcomed with open arms.

“Everyone here is going to find themselves a good home, it just won’t be here anymore.”

Maler said changes to his lab were probably coming, with students graduating and post-docs eventually moving elsewhere. The CIHR funding decision, he said, accelerated those changes. His focus now “is to keep training great Canadian neuroscientists” and to see the trainees eventually set up labs in Canada.

One researcher in Maler’s lab — who came from Israel to do post-doctoral work with him — said he was stunned there isn’t more public reaction to the situation.

“Canadians are so polite and peaceful. Where I come from, if this happened, I think the university would shut down, there would be so many protests,” said Avner Wallach, who has been working in Maler’s lab for the past two years and moved his family to Ottawa to do so.

“Basic science is being shut down in Canada and many people are not aware of it. Hundreds of people are losing their jobs. The chain of knowledge is broken and there will be a gap.”

The reforms at CIHR were put in motion under the Conservative government, which emphasized applied science over basic research and was criticized for muzzling scientists. The Liberal government has vowed to provide more support for scientists and scientific research, and is conducting a major review of basic research funding.

Scientists met with CIHR this summer at the request of Health Minister Jane Philpott in an attempt to at least partially reverse some of those reforms and return to a system more like the one that existed when peer review was conducted face-to-face. Maler said he hopes the flaws in the system will be fixed and after a year or two “my colleagues and I at the University of Ottawa will again receive CIHR funding and be able to bring back some of the high-end research to Ottawa.”

For now, though, CIHR funding decisions are not only hurting researchers and their teams, but Canada’s reputation.

Wallach, who will move his research and his family to either the U.S. or Germany, said he is often asked by graduates where they should go to do post-doctoral scientific research.

“The first thing I tell them is not to come to Canada if you are doing basic research because currently anyone doing basic science in Canada is not guaranteed to get funded.”

It is estimated that dozens of labs across Canada are reducing staff or closing as a result of funding reforms. Some scientists say they will seek other careers.

Erik Harvey-Girard, who has worked in Maler’s lab for 14 years, is among them.

“I love doing this. I felt like I was in paradise, now I have to go into the real world. I cannot do what I love.”

Harvey-Girard said he will probably seek work teaching because research funding is so unpredictable.

The decision, in the case of Maler’s lab, he said, makes little sense. Basic biomedical research has led to knowledge that enables much of modern medicine. Harvey-Girard said some of his research on the sensory systems of the electric fish has been used by researchers studying tinnitus in humans.

Harvey-Girard said other researchers at the University of Ottawa are “amazed” that Maler lost his grant. “They just don’t believe it because he is one of the best.”

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